October 2008

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Uh-Oh

October 24, 2008 in Hall table | No comments

I’ve installed lots of knife hinges, but the installation for the hall table has a new twist in it, described in the previous post.  I just installed the hinge halves in the doors, and during that process I uncovered a problem.

The above photo shows how I marked the doors for the hinge location.  The lower right hinge is shown installed in the lower rail.  I have the door in position, located with a stile stand-in.  I’m using my marking knife to mark the pin position, which I then used  to locate the door half of the hinge.  Here another photo of all the hinges in place, with the rails and stiles in position.

In a normal (rectangular door) installation, the cabinet can now be assembled and the cabinet half of the hinges mounted.  The door half of the hinges is then placed on the pins of the mounted hinge halves, and the door is slid into place.  Simple.  So, what’s the problem?

Since the lower hinges are not located at the outer edge of the door, I can’t slide the door over them.  Uh-oh.  This became obvious as I was routing the mortises for the lower hinges, and I couldn’t slide them into place.  That’s when it hit me.

I know I’m not the first person to use these hinges like this, so I’m sure there’s a solution.  In fact, I think I have one, but I’d love to hear yours.  Post a comment if you have any ideas.

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Knife hinges

October 19, 2008 in Hall table, Tools | No comments

Knife hinges are an elegant way to hang a door.  They have been around a while, but my guess is that James Krevov popularized them via his books and teaching.  That’s how I first came across them, back in the early 1980′s.  For the hall table/cabinet, they are the only hinges that would work.  I use Brusso hinges because they’re easy to get and work reasonably well.  The downside to them is the brass pin, which can gall in the brass hole into which it fits.  Also, the washer machined into the hinge is a bit on the thick side, but for this cabinet it’s not an issue.

Before I put the face frame together, I need to make the mortises for the knife hinges.  It would be very difficult to do after the glue-up.  I typically use the method specifed by Brusso for installation of the hinges, in which a small, precisely made jig is used to locate the pin relative to the cabinet sides.  In this case, that method wouldn’t work, since the hinges have different references top and bottom.  I just laid everything out very carefully, referencing off centerlines on each rail.  The upper hinges are located on the top rail as far outboard as they will go.  The lower hinges are located below the upper ones.

The photo shows the tools I used to lay out and install the mortises.  I used the cutting gauge to scribe lines parallel to the front edge of the rails, spaced 5/16″ apart (the hinge width).  I used the depth gauge, referenced off the ends of the rails, to make sure everything was centered.  The router, with a 3/16″ straight bit, was used to cut bulk of the mortises, and the remaining material was removed with the chisels.  The scribe lines make for accurate location of the chisel.  Here’s a close-up of one of the hinges.

I’ll install the hinges with steel screws for now, saving the brass screws that come with the hinges for later.  They only get installed once, at the very end of the project.

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Inside the shop, part 2

October 13, 2008 in Woodshop | 1 comment

Here’s another photo of the shop.  This shows the west wall.  I posted a previous pic here, of the opposite wall.

As I mentioned before, I am still moving in.  I don’t have enough built-in storage yet, so a lot of things are still in boxes or stacked somewhere.  But it’s getting better.  The lumber is stored on a heavy duty rack system which I really like.  Several suppliers sell it; including Woodcraft.

You can also see my chop saw/radial arm saw station.  Here’s a better picture.

I use a Sawhelper Ultrafence to the left of the chop saw.  It’s a great system.  You can also see the lumber rack system better; note the vertical supports under the wall straps.  Those support the bulk of the weight, while the attach screws keep them from coming off the wall.  The chop saw is a 12″ DeWalt 705 with a Forrest Chopmaster blade.  The radial arm saw in a 10″ DeWalt, model number unknown.  I bought it used from a friend.  It’s only 1 HP, so I have a thin kerf blade on it.  I have to cut slowly with it, but it works well.

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Something new

October 11, 2008 in Uncategorized | No comments

This is my first post on the new site!  Perhaps mundane to you, but exciting for me.  I’ve been meaning to update my website for quite a while, as the old site had not been changed for quite some time (almost four years…).

It will take me some time to get everything back up to speed, especially the photos of my work, so please be patient.  In the mean time I will be updating the blog.  I hope to get up at least one post each week, more if possible.

Thanks for reading!

Structure

October 7, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table, Jigs & fixtures | No comments

Attaching the web frames to the sides on any cabinet presents many choices.  Dado, rabbet, sliding dovetail, spline, biscuits, screws, pocket screws, nails(!), all come to mind.  They all have pros and cons associated with them related to appearance, structure (there’s form and function again), tradition, personal preference, etc.  Compounding the problem in this case, the web frame and shelf attach to the sides at an angle.

I don’t want to see plugs on the outside of the cabinet, so that eliminates the simple and strong option of a dado and screws.  For this piece, nails are out of the question, and they aren’t that strong anyway.   Pocket screws would offend the aesthetics of the piece (and me).  I presented the options to my students, and they challenged me to use sliding dovetails.  Strong and elegant, they would be the best option, and the most work…

I have done this joint before, but not at an angle.  In this case, I needed an angled dado to house the end of the shelf (or web frame), then a dovetail in the bottom of the dado.  Two routers, with simliar bases, one with a 7/8″ straight bit, the other with a 3/4″ 14-degree dovetail bit can be guided with an angled jig along the inside face of the sides.  Here’s a photo of the jig with the router.

I drew a cross-section of the jig full scale to get the dimensions right.  The angle is 11 degrees, and the router base is 5 3/4″ diameter.  I used a Makita and a Porter-Cable router, both with P-C bases on them (Makita conveniently made their bases with the P-C bolt pattern).  I carefully aligned the bases so the bits were concentric, and here’s what I got with my test cut.

The dovetail on the end of the shelf piece was cut on a router table with the same bit that made the housing.  It took a few tries to get the settings right; there’s not a lot of tolerance in this joint.  Too tight and you can’t put it together, too loose and it rattles like marbles in a can.  When it’s right, you can barely slide the parts together, and getting it apart is a bear.  Too bad no one will see it on the assembled cabinet; the front will be hidden by the face frame, and the back will be hidden by the frame and panel back.

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Where to start cutting?

October 3, 2008 in Furniture, Hall table, Jigs & fixtures | No comments

Since the doors on the table/cabinet are limited in size to the veneer I made, the cabinet must be made around them.  With that in mind, using 1/4″ MDF as a drawing surface, I created a full scale drawing of the cabinet front.  Actually, I only drew half of the cabinet, but that will give me all the information I need to cut out the parts.  Without this drawing, it would have been difficult to determine the lengths of all these parts, since none of them are rectilinear.

The photo shows the bottom half of the drawing.  The bottom edge of the MDF is the bottom of the cabinet.  The drawing shows the front “faceframe,” the interior parts, and the joinery (loose tenons).  I can now lay the parts on top of the drawing and just transfer the dimensions to the parts.  The next step is cutting them.

The tapered stiles will be mitered on their outside edges, and I decided to cut the miters after the frame is glued up.  Doing it now would complicate the frame glue-up and make the parts more difficult to handle.  To cut the taper, I use a taper jig of my own design.

Unlike most taper jigs, mine is wider at the far end.  The stop is located there also.  This means that the workpiece is used to guide the jig through the saw, instead of the reverse.  Most taper jigs give you no control over the workpiece, and you must trust the jig to push the workpiece through the saw, despite the physics of the operation working against you.  IMHO, this just works better, and I see no downsides.

Here’s the completed frame with the doors in place.  Nothing is glued up yet.

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